Status Quo’d by The Da Vinci Code

In spirit of the holiday, Maureen Dowd tries to find common ground between Da Vinci author Dan Brown and Da Vinci judge Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, who recently led the Vatican’s counter-attack, declaring Brown’s book full of lies and a throwback to 19th Century anti-clerical pamphlets. Dowd doesn’t see what the big deal is, when, after all, any suspect feminist fire in Brown’s book extinguishes itself in the end, with the descendant of Mary Magdalene happy to keep bearing her womanly cross of unearned ignominy. We’re guessing the Vatican is more concerned with trampled doctrine than the fact that no real call to action is issued in Brown’s book, but Dowd’s right that, in terms of consciousness-raising, a long bender of a book that ends with a reconciliatory whimper is rarely a threat to the status quo.